Election 2008: If you can't stand the heat, don't bake cookies!

It all started with an innocent cookie contest. “Vote in Our ’08 Presidential Cookie Bake-Off!” shouts the headline on parents.com, online home of American Baby, Parents, and Family Circle magazines. “Call it the sweet side of politics—for the last four presidential elections, we’ve asked the candidates’ better halves to share their favorite cookie recipe, then […]

It all started with an innocent cookie contest. “Vote in Our ’08 Presidential Cookie Bake-Off!” shouts the headline on parents.com, online home of American Baby, Parents, and Family Circle magazines. “Call it the sweet side of politics—for the last four presidential elections, we’ve asked the candidates’ better halves to share their favorite cookie recipe, then asked readers to vote for the best. So far your ballots have been spot-on in terms of predicting who’ll end up in the White House—every winning spouse has moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue soon after…”

But wait a minute; there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Yes, sad but true, there’s a dark (chocolate) under-currant here. And online blogs all over the world are having a field day with it. Try this:

It seems that the recipes submitted to the Presidential Cookie Bake-Off by both Cindy McCain and Bill Clinton were—gasp!—NOT ORIGINALS. Only Michelle Obama, and her shortbread recipe, came off unscathed in this Battle of the Presidential Spouses.

Original recipes? Puh-leeze. I doubt any of us has more than a handful of absolutely original recipes in our repertoire. I mean, when you bake cookies, do you start by thinking, “Hmmm, I’m going to invent a brand new cookie. I’ll begin with 2 cups of flour, and add 2/3 cup brown sugar, and maybe 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder…”

Nah, doesn’t work that way. It’s more like, “I love this oatmeal cookie. But how about substituting dried cranberries for the raisins, and leaving out the nuts, and adding more cinnamon…” THAT’S how recipes evolve. Take one old favorite, add a teaspoon of imagination, a quarter-cup of baking science, and there you have it: a “new” recipe is born.

Cindy, Bill—don’t feel bad. You’re being raked over the online coals unfairly. Those vipers of the press are probably just jealous of your cache of cookies. My advice? Try, try again. After all, campaigning for the 2012 election will be starting in a couple of months. And it’s never too soon to start working on your favorite recipe for the next Bake-Off.

Now, it’s our responsibility to take part in the democratic process, right? And that means voting for the Cookie of Your Choice. Which means you have to bake all three of the following recipes. And thanks to parents.com, here they are.

To be absolutely fair, let’s look at these recipes in alphabetical order of their owners. Bill Clinton, you’re up first:

Bake at 350°F for 8 to 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on pans for 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet. Cool on wire rack.

EXIT POLL: These cookies are the rugged he-men of cookie-world, more oats than anything else. They baked for about 15 minutes before they even started to brown; and they didn’t flatten out like oatmeal cookies usually do. But if you like a REALLY PLAIN oatmeal cookie, this one’s for you.

In a large bowl beat the butter or margarine, granulated sugar and brown sugar together. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well. In a medium-size bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture; stir until blended. Stir in oats and butterscotch chips.

Drop by tablespoonfuls about 2” apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake at 375°F for 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

EXIT POLL: Cindy, good effort. The cookies baked as advertised. Except you said I’d get 66 cookies… but I only got 46. Guess we have different sizes of tablespoons, huh?

Line a 17” x 12” x 1” baking pan with nonstick foil. (Parchment works just as well here. And you’re right, this isn’t a 17” x 12” pan; I cut the recipe in half and used a 9” x 13” pan. And since that’s a bit too large for a half-recipe, I only spread the dough part of the way to the edge, as you’ll see in a succeeding photo.)

Slowly add egg yolks, and beat well until smooth. Beat in Amaretto and zest.

Stir in flour and salt until combined. Spread dough evenly into prepared pan, flattening as smoothly as possible. Brush top of dough with egg white; sprinkle with nuts or fruit (if using) and with remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.

Bake at 325°F for 25 minutes or until brown, turn off oven and allow cookies to sit in oven (with door ajar) for 15 minutes.

Cut while slightly warm.

EXIT POLL: Michelle, you’re thinking outside the box. This cookie is certainly more interesting than the other two entrants. I wasn’t happy that the apricots I sprinkled on top burned, but other than that—moderately tasty, and definitely handsome. A good “for show” cookie.

And what did our King Arthur Flour taste-testing team think?

As KA goes, so goes the country? With no help from an electoral college, and no problem with hanging chads, our testers gave Cindy’s Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies the campaign win with 7 votes. Michelle Obama’s Shortbread Cookies came in second, with 5 votes (and swept the test kitchen bakers’ constituency); and Bill Clinton’s Oatmeal Cookies came in—sorry, Bill and Hill—last, with 3 votes.

OK, folks, how about a popular vote? Bake these cookies, and post your comments. Then vote at the Presidential Cookie Bakeoff. One (wo)man; one cookie; one vote. It’s the American way!

PJ Hamel was born in Wisconsin, grew up in New England, and graduated from Brown University. She was a journalist in Massachusetts and Maine before joining the King Arthur Flour Company in 1990, where she's been ever since. Author or co-author of three King Arthur ...

I made both Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama’s cookies last week and thought they were both mighty tasty. The shortbread cookies were definitely more unique (although I didn’t use any dried fruit) and I kind of wish that Cindy had put some sort of spin on what was otherwise a pretty familiar butterscotch chip cookie. I don’t care that she didn’t invent the recipe, but it would have been nice to see some sort of alteration based on her and her husbands’ tastes.

About an hour ago I was thinking to myself “Gee, I really should bake something, it’s been a couple days”. I opened up my unread feeds for the banter and low and behold what do I have, Cindy McCain’s Butterscotch Oatmeal recipe. However I noticed as well as everyone else it seems that it was to plain. I started thinking to myself and added the teaspoon of imagination you mentioned earlier to create the Smoatmeal Cookie. Half smore, half oatmeal cookie, all delicious. Substituted 1 cup of oatmeal for crushed graham crackers and seeing as I only had a handful of butterscotch chips on hand I substituted the rest with semi-sweet chocolate chips (both big and small). Really delicious, crunchy yet chewy I highly recommend. Next time there will be more graham less butterscotch and some marshmallow! Thanks for the post!

Ok, now can I have the recipe for the s’more pie. It sounds yummy! I guess I like simple cookies I grew up making oatmeal cookies with butterscotch chips or raisins. So my vote is for Cindy McCain’s cookies.

I don’t have a recipe for a s’more pie… I was just thinking how good it would be. My vote would be graham cracker crust, chocolate pudding filling, and a nice layer of Marshmallow Fluff on top. Or a chocolate custard filling and meringue, which would make it more like toasted marshmallow… OH BOY – now I really DO have to make up a recipe! -PJH

I am unimpressed by any of the Presidential cookies. But s’mores pie sounds good…or s’mores tart with a graham cracker crust, a chocolate ganache center, some marshmallow fluff spread on top and then piped on top would be a pouf of meringue nicely browned for that toasted marshmallow flavor…

Exactly what I was imagining, Barbara -now I just have to get a moment to do it! – PJH

I’m late in commenting on this post but I’m really glad that you touched on the fact that the cookie submissions for the “election” were meant to be in the vein of sharing a family favorite recipe. As you alluded to, so many people misunderstood the point of the whole endeavor and blew it up into a baking contest whereby the candidates’ spouses were supposed to whip up an original recipe and go at it, bake-off style (as if they don’t already have enough to do during election season). That vast misunderstanding gave rise to all of the unfair allegations of plagiarism, etc. It’s not surprising that many members of the press and the blogworld took up the story and ran with it but it is unfortunate. It’s great that you “got it” and shed some light as to the real intent of the cookie contest. How refreshing!